Giant Lizard Terrifies Island of Okinawa

Located in the city of Koza, Okinawa, and named for the gate into Kadena Air Base located at the avenue’s end, Gate 2 Street was your typical hub of overseas action for any military man deployed to one of the numerous outposts which dotted the island.
Here, with the Japanese Yen equivalent of about sixty US dollars, a GI on a 48 hour pass could sample the local alcoholic concoctions to the point of near delirium, still have enough cash left over for a romp in one of the many whorehouses which lined the strip, and a taxi ride back to his respective duty post before morning. It was a place where signs reading “Do Not Urine Here” stood sentry at the openings of dark, moist alleyways, out of which the stench of open sewage trenches would waft and mingle with the aroma of the street vendors’ grills; a truly repulsive smell which could easily result in instantaneous vomiting to the non-acclimated.
John Morrissey was a strange, magnificent sight to behold, carousing the sickly lit shanties and dive-bars of the Koza nightlife district. John, a Marine only a few years my junior, was a fellow I had known since Basic Field Artillery School in Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. In school he was a somewhat unremarkable student. A quiet, self-kept kid, fairly slow-to-the-draw, he had some trouble grasping the fundamentals of functioning on the battlefield as a competent field artilleryman. Academically retained for one class cycle due to poor marks, he did not arrive at his duty station for a full six weeks after the remainder of the class had been shipped out. His tenure in the fleet, however, would soon leave a barrage of lasting marks upon his soul.
A stocky, gin blossomed Irishman from Chicago, Morrissey could be spotted in his barracks on any given weeknight half-soused on Coors Light, pressing out his USMC utility uniform to perfection while humming the Marines’ Hymn under his breath. He was the kind of guy with tendencies towards stripping down nude or punching himself in the face when he had drank too much… not acceptable public behavior, even by Marine Corps standards. The Corps had not bestowed upon him the taste for alcohol; it had only fed and nurtured that which was already present. The kid was already a sort of unit legend in the States for getting ridiculously hammered and managing to dig himself out of any drunken predicament, smelling remarkably squeaky-clean by 0800 formation on Monday morning. It should have come as no surprise whatsoever that our routine six month deployment to Okinawa, Japan would test the limits of John Morrissey’s ability to avoid an international incident of CNN proportions.
It was fairly late in the evening, around ten or eleven, and our unholy entourage had just descended the stairs of a grimy establishment called “Seventh Heaven”. Though the name of the club might bring to mind perverse sexual acts taking place in a dimly lit opium den, “Seventh Heaven” was a fairly straightforward bar that hosted live rock music, had ridiculously cheap well drinks, and a weekend-only special running on a terrible Okinawan brew called “Mojo”.
Ah, Mojo… the word warms my gut with nausea and racks my brain with an uneasy spinning sensation, even to this day. A vicious hellbroth mixture of every grain alcohol behind the bar, along with a healthy splash of dangerously hallucinogenic “Habu Sake” thrown in for good measure, “Mojo” was usually served up by a fiendishly grinning “Mama-San” to an unwitting, thirsty GI who would spend the latter part of his evening trying to explain to the Japanese police why he had ran through a closed electronics repair store’s glass window, stark naked, and fallen asleep in the washroom with the words “Balls go Here” written on his face. Once, I found myself tearing an auto garage gate off of its tracks in a confused, Mojo-induced psychosis. I had been abandoned in the carport of some Okinawan girl’s apartment, drunk, while a savage mutant named Bradshaw took sexual liberties with the poor girl upstairs. I remember very little of that evening, save for tearing through the metal security gate and being chased by some form of uniformed officials into the roadside jungle.
There we were; Morrissey, a weight-lifting enthusiast/associate of ours named Eugene Laielli, and I, swaying unsteadily as we attempted to cross one of the taxi-jammed intersections on Gate 2 Street. “Jesus Christ, you brutal Mick,” I muttered to John, “How do you expect to enjoy this vibrant, exciting culture when you can’t even walk in a straight line?”
He beckoned wildly with his hand towards a street vendor on the opposite side of the avenue, shouting loudly. “Hey, fucker… you got Yakitori?” he asked while approaching the frail old man behind the stand. “Hai!” the man replied. “You want chicken?” John had a way of reminding you time and time again why he was a dangerously crude man to set loose on an unsuspecting public. “Pussy, I don’t give a shit if you grill up some stray cats, I’m fuckin starving!!!” Oh Christ, I thought to myself, these poor, innocent bastards are not designed for this kind of abuse.
The vendor served up three sticks of what could only be assumed was some sort of edible bird. John quickly devoured the snack and suddenly punched a sheet of aluminum being used as an ad-hoc menu and price guide. The sound rang out like a gunshot, terrifying the old man local behind the counter. “Fuck this, brother!” John exclaimed. “Let’s get wasted and find a goddamned whorehouse!” I scanned the area, racked with paranoia, on the lookout for any local police or Shore Patrol who may have heard the outburst. “Fuck you...” I replied from behind dark wrap-around sunglasses. “You are going to wind up in some shit-hole Japanese cell, sleeping on a bamboo mat, eating fish heads and rice, defecating in a rusty metal bucket for the rest of your days…. And I want none of it.” I assumed my response to his plans would exacerbate his condition, but he seemed unfazed. “I’m fucking serious, pussy. We should get some whore-action happening…shit man, if you ain’t got the cash, I mean… I’ll spring for you, too!” Throughout all of this exchange, Eugene simply shook his head.
At that point I realized John’s mind could not be changed. He was a man of sub-standard intellect, but tremendous mental inertia, and once the gears had began turning and that terrible machine had completed just one combustion cycle, there was no force in the known world capable of seizing up the pistons. It was only seconds before John was harassing the poor Yakitori cook again, this time for directions to the nearest local brothel. In a broken English voice that was wavering with the sound of fear and distrust, the old man began to describe an establishment only two blocks away.
It was about ten minutes later when we arrived at a stairwell which ascended into a second-story doorway. A lighted sign hung above the entrance which read “Club Blue Moon.” “This must be it.” I stated to John. “What are you waiting for? Get your ass up there, man, and don’t take any shit from these loopy broads!” The carpeted stairs were stained with unknown liquids and the air was thick with the smell of old cigarette smoke. Various works of graffiti were scrawled along the walls of the corridor. There were lewd images, autographs, and brief descriptions of sexual acts. Young men of low moral standard, over the course of many years had left written evidence of their presence in this establishment, thousands of miles from their homes and safely out of the range of the wives and girlfriends back in the US.
An awkward discomfort solidified within me as the three of us entered the door upstairs. An old Asian woman, not four foot in stature, greeted us at the door. She took a deep inhale from what looked like a Virginia Slim cigarette and stood uncomfortably close. “Nothing, dammit!” I told her. “I don’t want a goddamn thing!”
A waft of thick incense found my nostrils, making my drunken head spin, and I felt my constitution was about to be tested. I had never grown accustomed to the thought of paying for sex in some foreign slum, and harbored a special disgust for incense of any kind. My stomach churning from its volatile contents, the unmistakable sensation of imminent vomiting crept into my throat at once. Summoning any endurance I could find within me, I managed to refrain from throwing up at the foul dragon-lady’s feet. I immediately went to the bar and ordered a shot of warm sake to ease my retching stomach.
A Filipino girl who looked about twenty emerged from behind a curtain-drawn hallway. Not remotely attractive with her stringy black hair, livestock smile and the figure of an emaciated boy, she approached John with the unsteady gait of a Sunset Strip hooker. She leaned over to whisper something into John’s ear and quickly scooped his hand up into hers.
The illicit flesh trade of the Far East is serious business. Young girls living in third world nations such as Thailand, Malaysia, or the Philippines respond to advertisements in their local newspapers offering travel and steady pay, often by the wishes of their own family. They are forced into indentured servitude contracts, shipped to places like Okinawa, and placed under the charge of a madam who literally controls how much daylight they are permitted to see per day. A fortunate few wind up employees of “Buy-Me-Drink” bars. These establishments, often owned by the Japanese Yakuza crime syndicate, provide scantily clad girls to act as flirtatious, social companions for the customers. They are there to get you spending money. You buy them ten dollar shots of what is actually apple juice or tea, and in turn they act drunk and pretend to enjoy your company. There is nothing more pathetic and depraved than a young GI who believes he is in love with one of these horrid creatures. They are master hunters, carnivores, and tonight John smelled like a fresh kill.